The Real Spirit of the Season: 14 Charity Gift Sites
November 21, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Steph in Animals & Habitats & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
Does your boss really need another coffee mug, or your father another tie? What if you could, instead, give them a gift that changes another person’s life, or improves the environment? These 14 charitable giving websites allow you to symbolically ‘adopt’ an animal, foster a coral reef, provide school books for children in third world countries and give long-term sustenance to families in need. Your recipients receive a card letting them know that you’ve donated in their names and that warm glow that comes with doing a great deed.
Oxfam America Unwrapped
(image via: oxfamamericaunwrapped)
Mosquito nets, vegetable gardens and goats can be the difference between life and death for families in need around the world. Oxfam America Unwrapped lets you choose a unique gift that can help give an education, start a business, recover from a disaster or provide long-term food and water solutions. Your friend or loved one gets a card letting them know that you have donated in his or her honor, and the money goes to someone in need.
Greater Good
(image via: greatergood.org)
Greater Good partners with charities around the world, letting donors give 100% tax-deductible contributions directly to nonprofit causes like recovery from the earthquake in Turkey, feeding malnourished children in Africa, providing clean water to families in Guatemala and helping veterans in America get training for new jobs. Choose your preferred cause, and you can donate in the name of your gift recipient.
International Fund for Animals
(image via: ifaw.org)
Honor someone special with tribute gifts from the International Fund for Animals, which saves animals in crisis around the world including whales, elephants, seals and domesticated pets. IFAW will send a special card to the individual of your choice to notify them of your tribute.
Heifer International
(image via: heifer.org)
Give a gift that will change someone’s life forever. Heifer International works to end world hunger by providing livestock, trees and bees to people in need. Gifts include cows, sheep, goats, water buffalos, geese, pigs and chicks. These gifts can make all the difference in the world as they produce offspring to sell and manure to nourish crops.
Bidding for Good
(image via: biddingforgood.com)
Want a real, physical gift that also gives to charitable causes and organizations? Check out Bidding for Good, an auction site where you can shop for travel packages, unique experiences like hot air balloon rides, tickets to special events and in-demand items like iPods. A portion of proceeds goes to a cause specified by the seller including elementary schools, pet rescue organizations and the arts.
Alternative Gifts International
(image via: altgifts.org)
At Alternative Gifts International, you can choose a cause that might resonate with your intended gift recipient – like hunger, education, gender equality, reducing child mortality or environmental sustainability. Projects within each focus area might give children around the world anti-parasite treatment, provide bicycles to rural healthcare workers in Namibia, give safe water to people i the Philippines or help kids in Myanmar stay in school.
The Nature Conservancy
(image via: nature.org)
The Nature Conservancy invites you to “give a gift of conservation.” You can adopt a coral reef in Palau or an acre in the Northern Rockies. You can plant trees in Brazil, give the gift of clean water or give a special kid’s gift of protecting threatened species like turtles, jaguars, rhinos and orangutans. Another fun gift is the Animal Adoption Kit for kids; the gift recipient will receive a backpack full of stuffed versions of the animals that are being protected in their name as well as discounts from eco-friendly retailers, field trip invitations and more.
Charity: Water
(image via: charitywater.org)
We take clean water for granted, letting untold millions of gallons of it disappear down the drain when people around the world don’t have access to a single glass. Charity: Water, an organization that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations, allows you to donate in someone’s honor. You get to choose a specially-designed greeting card to send the recipient, and 100% of your donation will directly fund water project costs.
Oceana
(image via: store.oceana.org)
Oceana works to protect the world’s oceans, and when you choose to adopt marine wildlife through them, your money will fund efforts to improve the health and safety of species like bluefin tuna, sea turtles, coral, sharks, whales and dolphins. You can adopt the species of your choice and send an ‘Honor Card’, printed with soy inks on recycled paper using 100% wind power. When you adopt four animals, you receive four stuffed animals, and adopting six will get you a set of cookie cutters.
TisBest
(image via: tisbest.org)
Not sure which charity or cause your gift recipients would prefer? Let them choose. At TisBest, you choose between printing a gift card on your printer or sending a 100% recycled gift card by regular mail. Choose between over 50 stock images, or upload your own to personalize it. The recipient then gets to select the charity of his or her choice to receive the donation.
Concern Worldwide
(image via: concerngifts.org)
Located outside the United States? No problem. Many of the charities on this list can work with international donors, and Concern Worldwide deals specifically in Euros. Types of gifts include medical help, long term support in the form of apple trees or solar water pumps, access to education, and school books and sports equipment for kids.
National Parks Annual Pass
(image via: nps.gov)
Encourage your friends, family members and co-workers to explore America’s most beautiful natural spaces. The National Parks Annual Pass gives them access to over 2,000 federal recreation sites including national parks, national wildlife refuges and national forests. Of course, the entrance fees covered by the pass are a crucial part of the National Parks System’s budget, so purchasing this pass preserves our natural heritage for everyone. The pass covers the driver plus all passengers, so it’s an ideal way to give an eco-friendly, charitable gift to an entire family.
JustGive.org
(image via: justgive.org)
Here’s another way to let your gift recipient choose exactly which charity he or she would like to see your funds to go. JustGive features over 1,000 recommended charities in areas like animals, education, children, arts and culture, disaster relief and women’s issues. You can either send the recipient an email notification, or have JustGive mail a personalized note card.
World of Good
(image via: worldofgood.ebay.com)
World of Good truly is the best of both worlds. Offering a selection of artisan, hand-made and fair trade clothing, household goods and other gifts, World of Good is a special eBay market site for socially and environmentally responsible shopping. You can purchase physical gifts that your friends and family will love, and know that your money is supporting economic empowerment, energy conservation, animal welfare and other causes. World of Good verifies each merchant through a third-party non-profit partner.
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Building a Better World, One Cereal Box at a Time
September 26, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
What can you do with a bag of garbage? While you might think it’s not good for much more than landfill material, Al Braun, co-founder of Better World Materials in Kearns, Utah, has other ideas: His company is converting waste products into building materials.
The company takes items that recycling centers often reject—milk jugs and cereal boxes, for instance—and uses machinery to grind them down into a woodlike substance that can be used for building materials such as railroad ties, foundations, and boards.
Braun began developing the process 20 years ago, after seeing how much garbage ended up scattering across his native Hawaiian island as debris after a hurricane. He’s spent hundreds of thousands on his mission, but he’s now developed a process that can convert most forms of rejected recyclables into building materials.
Currently, the company is focusing on railroad ties, but that will change soon: Better World recently signed a contract with TuffShed to produce planks that can be used for shed foundations. Better World is also aiming to build plants to convert trash into construction materials in 15 states. If that happens, the company will need a lot of raw materials to process—but the company’s CEO, Dalyn Judd doesn’t believe that should be a problem.
“Are we going to run out of garbage?” he asked the Salt Lake Tribune. “I don’t think so.”
Source: Gimundo
Look at me! I’m a railroad tie!
Beth
(Re)Make it Rain: Rainwater Reclamation Designs
September 12, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Steph in Art & Design & Home & Garden. ]
Big, bulky plastic rain barrels have their place, but there’s more than one way to capture and store rainwater, as these 12 innovative and versatile designs and concepts prove. Dual-purpose garden furniture and rain cisterns, personal catchment systems that attach to water bottles, beautiful self-watering planters and towering public installations harvest the most precious resource of all, and they do it in style.
Rain Harvesting Garden Table
(images via: green launches)
Cisterns take up a lot of room, and not everyone has a huge backyard. This brilliant concept doubles the function by turning your rainwater reservoir into a garden table; the slanted surface of the table captures water. Great for those who only need to harvest small amounts of rainwater, or as a supplement to additional systems.
Downspouts Double as Water-Recycling Planters
(images via: seattle times)
This cool concept for urban gutter downspouts turn an otherwise unremarkable element of the exterior of a building and turns it into a decorative planter, routing some of the water to the roots of the plants along the way.
Lush, Elegant Rainwater Harvesting System
(images via: inhabitat)
Save space and beautify your garden with CISTA, a decorate rain reservoir and planter that stretches tall to take up less valuable room. Industrial designers figforty and architects MOSS SUND designed the 8-foot stainless steel column to hold up to 100 gallons of water; a climbing vine is planted at the base and allowed to take over the frame.
Agua in Situ: Rainwater Purifying Trees
(images via: coroflot)
Blending in with nature and providing a potentially life-saving function, Agua in Situ is a tree-like vertical rainwater harvester made of stainless steel with a UV-resistant polycarbonate internal layer. The opening is shaped like leaves or the petals of a flower to capture rainwater naturally, and a carbon filter on the end of each tower sterilizes the water for safe use.
Accumuwater Water Tower
(images via: coroflot)
Doubling as public sculpture, the Accumuwater is like a smaller, household version of the Agua in Situ without the filtering capabilities. The towers independently capture rainwater for those who, for whatever reasons, can’t use their roofs; a hose or spigot attaches to the base.
Rain-Collecting Skyscraper
(images via: design boom)
When water is needed on a large scale – as it already is in many areas of the world – why not devote an entire skyscraper to the job of harvesting rainwater? ‘Capture the Rain’, by Ryszard Rychlicki and Agnieszka Nowak, has a dish-shaped roof and an exterior shell consisting of gutters to do just that. Under the surface of the roof is large reservoirs with reed fields that botanically filter the water for use in toilets, washing machines, cleaning and other domestic applications.
RainDrops: Reusing 2-Liter Bottles
(images via: yanko design)
Not only does this innovative system reuse disposable 2-liter bottles, it adapts to an existing gutter system, providing individual-sized amounts of captured water at a very low initial cost. Designed by Evan Gant, the ‘Rain Drops’ concept could be adapted for use in developing areas where fresh, sanitary water is scarce.
Vertical Garden & Rain Collector
(images via: treehugger)
‘Vert’ is a vertical garden, a way to capture and use rainwater, and a potential screen for unsightly outdoor areas, all in one simple wooden structure. A cotton wick at the top draws water from a tank up to a self-watering planter; the cedar planter boxes can be arranged as desired. Such a system could allow users to grow food in small spaces without increased usage of tap water.
Inverted Umbrella & Cistern Chair
(images via: gregortimlin.com)
Like the rain cistern/garden table, the ‘Volume Chair’ takes a functional object already found in most yards and turns it into a storage tank for water. In this case, an inverted umbrella (which also functions as a sun shade) captures rainwater and transports it with a hose to the chair-shaped tank.
Petal Drops Personal Rain Harvester
(images via: quirky)
Even if you don’t have a single square inch of outdoor space to call your own, you can harvest rainwater for a variety of uses with the clever ‘Petal Drops’, a flower-shaped funnel that attaches to standard water bottles. Made of 100% recycled high-density polyethylene, the design is simple and elegant and takes up very little space when not in use.
Rainwater Hog
(images via: rainwaterhog.com)
The Rainwater Hog may not exactly be a stunning sculptural object to beautify your outdoor area, but it’s not quite as ugly as many rain barrel designs. Better yet, its vertical design saves space, and multiple units can easily be placed side-by-side. Made of UV-stabilized, food-grade plastic, each 50-gallon unit is 100% recyclable.
Massive Glass Funnels at Shanghai Expo 2010
(images via: tonylaw)
At the 2010 Shanghai Expo, massive glass funnels imbedded with LED lights, overlapped with tent structures, served a double purpose: harvesting rainwater on a massive scale, and letting natural daylight into the shaded area while maintaining protection against the elements. The rainwater was channeled into a 7,000-cubic-meter storage tank and used throughout the grounds to water plants.
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Davos 2010 - IdeasLab with Social Entrepreneurs - Kyle Zimmer
February 2, 2011 by · View Comments
IdeasLab with Social Entrepreneurs Join Social Entrepreneurs in the IdeasLab to discover creative solutions designed to address society’s most pressing needs
Peter Rich on the Possibilities of Micro Finance
November 4, 2010 by · View Comments
Peter Rich - Microfinance Alliance Peter Rich is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management where he wondered about the ideas of more mindful businesses, social enterprise, and microfinance. He is a co-founder of the Microfinance Alliance, which aspires to educate and raise awareness of the importance of microfinance as a tool for poverty alleviation and bottom-up community development. By engaging the public and university community, the group has created a forum for dialogue, opportunities for action, and greater support for microfinance. Recorded on July 31st, 2008 at Solutions for the Other 90% at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. www.solutionstwincities.org
Davos 2010 - IdeasLab with Social Entrepreneurs - Naif Al Mutawa
October 21, 2010 by · View Comments
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Davos 2010 - IdeasLab with Social Entrepreneurs - Reed Paget
September 11, 2010 by · View Comments
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Dave Stewart, composer & msucian, talks about Kiva Micro-lending
May 31, 2010 by · View Comments
Dave Stewart is an English musician and record producer. Best known for his work with Eurythmics, Stewart has written songs with many famous musicians, including Gwen Stefani, Jon Bon Jovi, Mick Jagger, tATu, Bono and Katy Perry, and cites as one of his strengths his ability to coax personal stories from his co-writers. He started the consulting company DeepStew with Deepak Chopra, is US creative director for the Law Firm ad group, president of entertainment for fashion designer Christian Audigier’s brand-management unit, and is an official Change Agent for Nokia. In this 30-second video interview, Stewart talks about Kiva Micro-lending Offering Narratives to Bring the World Closer withIdeas Project, a new website brought to you by Nokia. Ideas Project is an online space that provides a new way to interact with thought leaders and their big ideas about the future of connected communications. For more 30-second ideas big idea, visit www.ideasproject.com. Ideas Project, a project of Nokia, brings together the most visionary and influential big thinkers to contemplate the big ideas that matter most to the future of communications. It is also a new kind of conversation platform aimed at uncovering the connections between these thought leaders and their disruptive ideas. Explore the Ideas Project website at http subscribe to its RSS feed, join its Twitter feed, and come back often to learn about great new big ideas as they break.
Architecture of a Recession: Abandoned Housing Developments
April 9, 2010 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Animals & Habitats, History & Trivia, Home & Garden. ]
When we think of abandoned cities, most of us picture the old west ghost towns of the United States: desolate, dusty places where once life bustled and filled the streets with motion. But there’s another kind of abandoned place today, one that is underlined by the sad state of the current global economy. Housing developments that were once meant to be wonderful new homes for fortunate families now sit desolate and wait for nature to reclaim them.
This abandoned development in Rio Vista, California is perhaps the most visually impressive example of the American dream gone wrong. The 750 homes that were meant to be built here will likely never be realized, and the streets and sidewalks which were meant to support the development’s residents sit desolate and unused.
The development’s infrastructure was laid out and a handful of model homes built. Street lights and signs were erected, yards were plotted out…and then the money ran out. Construction was officially halted on November 20, 2008 due to a massive budget shortfall.
(Rio Vista images via: Dornob)
When the money ran out and the construction crews left, the carefully planned community began returning to its wild California roots. Partially-landscaped model home yards soon reverted to scrappy, dry, brown spaces. The homes themselves now sit abandoned and half-finished. For now, the project is on an indefinite hold while the city considers whether to declare bankruptcy.
Sadly, developments that don’t quite play out as planned aren’t at all a new phenomenon. A somewhat similar situation took place in the planned community of California City, California in the late 1950s. Nat Mendelsohn, a real estate developer and professor of sociology, embarked on a mission to found a city that would rival Los Angeles in size and population. He purchased 80,000 acres in the Mojave desert and started developing the land into a city.
(California City images via: BLDGBLOG)
The only problem was that residents didn’t flock to the planned community like Mendelsohn hoped. California City did attract some residents, and it boasts a healthy population today. But the mostly-undeveloped areas are spooky and resemble a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It’s composed of decaying city blocks and roads where, although they are all named, cars almost never go. Other parts of California City are very much inhabited, but these parts devoid of life paint out a kind of modern-day geoglyph in the desert sand.
Likewise, the Rotonda Sands neighborhood in Southern Florida did actually attract some residents – but it’s the homes that were abandoned mid-construction and the overgrown, empty lots that tell the rest of the story. Founded in the 1960s as a planned suburbian paradise, the Rotonda development should have flowered into a haven for families and retirees. But only about 3/4 of the development was ever truly developed. The remaining part was left to return to the Floridian wilderness.
(Rotonda Sands images via: Mental Floss)
The Rotonda development did enjoy a partial recovery in the early 2000s, when developers and homebuyers once again showed interest in building in the deserted part of the neighborhood. But the bursting of the housing market combined with the brutal hurricanes of 2004 once again halted the plans. Today, many of the lovely new homes are abandoned, and many more sit half-finished, simply providing shelter for the Florida wildlife that wanders the grounds.
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